


Spiral Parade

by orphan_account



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Angst, Depression, HOP ON THE TRANS ZUKO TRAIN WITH ME, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Iroh (Avatar) is a Good Uncle, One Shot, Panic Attacks, Scars, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, The Fire lord is there but only mentioned, Trans Male Character, Trans Zuko (Avatar), Transphobia, but it’s there - Freeform, it’s only like one line though, sad zuko, seriously this duo makes me cry, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23455009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Zuko is spiraling.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 470





	Spiral Parade

**Author's Note:**

> please don’t read this if you think it will trigger you! be careful!

Life was better, it was not perfect, but he was content for the time being, at least he should’ve been. But he could feel himself slipping away again, losing himself in his thoughts. Zuko thinks himself a selfish person—he should be happy, finally having some peace and living with his uncle in the small tea shop they owned. Instead he felt anger. 

Anger mostly towards himself, and also guilt. He didn’t understand why he had to be this way, why his brain just wanted him to end everything, but he couldn’t do that to his uncle, he had lost so much already. 

The crown prince turns his head into his pillow and tries to fall asleep. 

Maybe he’ll suffocate.

* * *

He hadn’t wanted to die so badly in a while, and honestly the thing that set his emotions off made him feel pathetic. _Useless._

It happened a bit earlier in the day, he’d been serving a customer and ended up dropping the tea cups on the floor, and just like that he was hit with a distant memory. His father, screaming at him for dropping some sort of plate, his mother standing in front of him as she tried to protect him, but not even she could protect her son from his father's rage. Not even she could protect him from the scar it left behind, long and jagged down his calf.

The woman he had served tea to, or attempted to do so, had been screaming at him the entire time—he hadn’t even noticed, too preoccupied with his own thoughts to think about what she was saying. He fled the room before he lashed out, instead leaving his uncle to deal with the situation as he tried to calm himself down from an oncoming panic attack. 

_Sorry uncle._

Zuko cries and cries and cries, but quietly, even in this back room where it’s dark and muffled, he doesn’t risk showing his weakness. 

* * *

Zuko hates himself with every fiber of his being, a feeling so deep he doesn’t think he can carve it out with a knife. But he tries to anyways. 

He leaves long scars running in all different directions on his arms, mostly on his legs so his uncle won’t get too suspicious. Zuko knows how stupid it is though, knows how perceptive Iroh is.

“Zuko,” Iroh sits down from a long day of serving tea, rubbing his back. He looks at his nephew and sighs, “if you don’t bandage those properly they will get infected.” He can feel Zuko tense, and then sigh—he probably knew this was going to happen anyways. Iroh spends the next half hour bandaging the scars on his arms, and takes note of how old some of them look, frowning when he realizes he’s been doing this longer than he had noticed. He leaves Zuko to bandage the ones on his thighs and then hears a small sob come from the corner of the room where his nephew normally stays. 

Iroh feels overcome with emotion and frowns deeply at the thought of his nephew hurting so deeply the only way he thought he could relieve it was to do something so painful instead of coming to him. 

“Nephew, do you want some tea?” Zuko curls up deep into his blankets, Iroh takes it as a no. “Sit up, I have something better for you.” 

The prince becomes angry, just wanting to be left alone, “you know what would be better, uncle? If you just left me alone!” But Iroh only shakes his head, and pulls him into a warm and kind embrace. Zuko feels a little bit of his heart crumble. 

_Oh._

Iroh lets him cry into his shoulder for as long as he needs to. 

* * *

After that, Zuko sticks to cutting only on the upper thigh and his stomach, he can’t risk Iroh finding out again, because no matter how much he loves his uncle he can’t let this selfish part of him go. 

He knows he’s in for a long night when he starts thinking about his father. No matter how much he wanted to be loved by his father, no matter how much he wanted his honor back, he couldn’t help but hate the man. It felt horrible and unnatural, but there was such deep resentment towards the man, such hatred that it made him want to burn everything in his path down, but the desire to be wanted, loved, and cared for was stronger. So he pushed those feelings to the bottom of his heart, and let it eat away at him slowly. He deserved it after all.

Sometimes he has to remember he’s still _princess_ Zuko, to his father at least, even if the thought makes him sick. 

One night the prince tries something new, he doesn’t know why he hasn’t thought of it before, but when he does it’s the only thing he can think about until he can find the time and place where he’s alone. 

When his uncle goes to sleep, he sneaks off to the bathroom, attempting to be as quiet as possible despite the creaky floorboards. He lifts up the sleeve on his arm, not really caring where he does it because the urge now is too strong, too much. With a controlled flame, he presses two fingers to his wrist, trying his best to stay quiet, sweating slightly at the horrific pain and then sighing in relief when he feels better. And then it all hits him at once. Here he is, the crowned prince, so small and weak, burning himself in this tiny, wooden bathroom all because he needs to feel something other than sadness. This feeling of helplessness and inferiority overtakes him quickly, making his breath come quickly. He grips his hair, so tightly he might rip it out, and tells himself to shut up, he can’t wake uncle. But it’s just not his lucky day, because soon there’s a knocking on the door, and Zuko tries his best to stay calm. 

There’s nothing he can do now as panic floods his system, and he feels like he’s going to be sick, the world spins and spins even as he’s sitting on the floor.

He pounds his hands against his head, because he’s so stupid, he can’t even breathe correctly, it’s no wonder his father hates him, his father wants him dead. _He does too._

“Zuko! Zuko please, it’s okay now,” and then he remembers, he is here, in a little tea shop with his uncle. He’s okay for a bit, he has his uncle, who’s now going through some sort of breathing technique with him, and eventually he calms down to the point where he can think.

“I’m sorry.” Are the first words from his mouth.

“You cannot always apologize for things out of your control, even if that thing is _you_.” Zuko still feels the guilt in his stomach, hears the floorboards creaking, but for now he has his uncle and his little tea shop, and he thinks maybe this life won’t be so bad for the time being.

**Author's Note:**

> i might go back and edit this to be a bit more descriptive and just better overall sometime, but for now i needed to just write this down. i’m starting a vent series soon, i think.
> 
> thank you for reading, stay safe <3


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